In Lesson 10, you first learned how to use numbers in Korean. That information was crucial in your ability to count different things in Korean like things, events, minutes, hours, days, months, cars and many other things.

When numbers get bigger, they get more complicated. These complicated numbers weren’t integral to your early understanding of Korean, but they are important. In this lesson, I would like to introduce larger Korean numbers. Let’s get started.

Large Korean Numbers

In Lesson 10, you learned that there are two sets of numbers: Pure Korean numbers and Sino-Korean (Chinese) numbers. In this lesson, we are going to be talking about large numbers – that is, numbers over 10,000. In this lesson, we don’t need to bother with Pure Korean numbers because, for practical purposes, they aren’t used much over sixty or seventy.

Large Sino-Korean numbers are confusing. For English speakers, most of this confusion stems from the fact that “10,000” has its own word in Korean. Let me explain.

There is a word for “1” in Korean and English. It is “일” and “one” respectively.
There is a word for “10” in Korean and English. It is “십” and “ten” respectively.
There is a word for “100” in Korean and English. It “백” and “one hundred” respectively.
There is a word for “1,000” in Korean and English. It is “천” and “one thousand” respectively.

There is a word for “10,000” in Korean (“만”), but there is not a separate word for this in English. We just use the previous denomination “thousand” with “ten” to say “ten thousand.”

When writing out Sino-Korean numbers, everything under 10,000 is contained in one word. For example:

Note that I will be spelling out numbers using words in this lesson. With big numbers, numerals would most likely be used in real life. However, I am spelling out these number-words for you so you can understand how to say them.

1 = 일
12 = 십이
123 = 백이십삼
1,234 = 천이백삼십사

In English, we count in units of thousands until we reach one million. For example:

In Korean, they count thousands only until they reach 10,000. For example:

1,000 = 천
2,000 = 이천
9,000 = 구천
9,999 = 구천구백구십구

Once they reach 10,000, the word “만” is used.

10,000 = 만

Spacing between large numerals is done in units of 10,000. Now that we are going to a number larger than 9999, the word “만” should be placed before the rest of the numbers in a separate word. A simple way to think of it is that a space comes after four Arabic numbers. For example:

12,345 = 만 이천삼백사십오

Just like we count thousands, Korean people count “ten-thousands.” This is very hard for English speakers to wrap their heads around. For example:

Adding more numerals to “조” is done just like it was done with “만” and “억.” That is, the words 천, 백 and 십 tell us how many “units of one-trillion” we have. For example:

12,345,678,912,345 = 십이조 삼천사백오십육억 칠천팔백구십일만 이천삼백사십오Notice that the first word is “twelve trillions”

123,456,789,123,456 = 백이십삼조 사천오백육십칠억 팔천구백십이만 삼천사백오십육Notice that the first word is “one-hundred-twenty-three trillions”

1,234,567,891,234,567 = 천이백삼십사조 오천육백칠십팔억 구천백이십삼만 사천오백육십칠Notice that the first word is “one-thousand—two-hundred-thirty-four trillions”

9,999,999,999,999,999 = 구천구백구십구조 구천구백구십구억 구천구백구십구만 구천구백구십구Notice that the first word is “nine-thousand—nine-hundred-ninety-nine trillions”

After 만, 억 and 조, the next unit is “경.” 경 represents “ten-thousand trillions.” One “경” represents “ten quadrillions.” It is rare to come across “경” in everyday life, but it follows the same pattern as 만, 억 and 조 in that 9,999 units of “ten-quadrillions” can be placed before 경 before the next unit needs to be used. For example:

999,900,000,000,000,000 = 구천구백구십구경

You might be thinking that even “조” would be uncommon in Korean. In English, it is quite rare that we talk about things in the “trillions.” However, the Korean currency (the 원) is roughly 1000:1 with the American dollar. Therefore, when talking about currency, it can be more common than you think. For example:

Note: Officially, “원” should be separated from the numeral or word when writing it down, as shown below. Most Korean people do not include the space, and therefore it can be seen as acceptable to not include it.

1,000 원 (천 원) is roughly equivalent to $1 and can buy a can of pop
10,000 원 (만 원) is roughly equivalent to $10 and can buy a cheap meal
100,000 원 (십만 원) is roughly equivalent to $100 and can buy a cheap cell-phone
1,000,000 원 (백만 원) is roughly equivalent to $1,000 and can buy a nice computer
10,000,000 원 (천만 원) is roughly equivalent to $10,000 can buy a cheap car
100,000,000 원 (일억 원) is roughly equivalent to $100,000 and can be a big down-payment on a house
1,000,000,000 원 (십억 원) is roughly equivalent to $1,000,000 and can buy an apartment on the Han River in Seoul.

10,000,000,000 원 (백억 원) is roughly equivalent to $10,000,000 and is the amount of money the top celebrities or athletes make in a year

100,000,000,000 원 (천억 원) is roughly equivalent to $100,000,000 and might represent the revenue of a massive company

1,000,000,000,000 원 (일조 원) is roughly equivalent to $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars). It might be rare to talk about billions of dollars, but when talking about government debts and spending, figures often fall into the “billions of dollars.” Therefore, it is common to see “조” being used in forms of news when reporting about government spending.

Below are many other examples of using big numbers using the vocabulary from this lesson:

우주 나이는 대략 백삼십억 살이에요
= The age of the universe is roughly 13,000,000,000 years

은하수에 천억 개 넘게 해성이 있어요
= There are more than 100,000,000,000 planets in the Milky Way Galaxy